It's not often the golf writers have a need to contact the Ministry of Defence, although some of the eye-watering shots on display at The Herald sports desk's spring outing have occasionally been described as a grave threat to national security.

Here in the strokeplay qualifying rounds of the 120th Amateur Championship at Carnoustie and Panmure, the shoot-out hasn't been reserved for the links. The rat-a-tat-tat racket from the nearby Barry Buddon firing range finally prompted one angry local spectator to storm the media centre and inform all and sundry that it was "a disgrace during a championship of this stature."

Surely there must be a few retired major generals in the Royal & Ancient membership with the power to bellow 'company, cease fire'? Not quite. "We were made aware of the championship taking place but it was impossible to change the schedules for what is a very busy and important period of training activity for both regular Army and reservists," a spokesperson for the Ministry said.

Unlike those sound sensitive pros, who can be distracted by a jenny spinner breaking wind at 300 paces, the amateurs are a hardy bunch. "I did duck a couple of times," joked Englishman, Alfie Plant, who qualified for the knock-out stages after following up his 63 at Panmure with a slightly more turbulent 78 at Carnoustie.

Against a backdrop of relentless popping and cracking, Peebles youngster Craig Howie unleashed his own barrage at Carnoustie as the 20-year-old shared top spot with New Zealand's Ryan Chisnall after a five-under 67 gave him a seven-under 135. Howie will be the No 1 seed by virtue of a card countback. "They were fairly going at it, I thought there was a war on," said a smiling Howie, of that trigger happy mob over the out of bounds fence. After winning the Scottish Boys' Championship in 2012, Howie's form deserted him but a change of coach and more of a focus on the finer details of his on-course statistics has led to an upturn in fortunes.

A share of third in the recent St Andrews Links Trophy, one of Europe's premier strokeplay contests, was a sizeable step in the right direction. "I needed a fresh start," added Howie, who highlighted his card yesterday with an eagle-2 on the 11th, where he pitched in from 30 yards. "There was a point, mentally, when I didn't feel good enough to compete at this level but confidence can do so much for your game."

Grant Forrest, playing in the penultimate group, confirmed his safe passage through with a 72 for 139 and was joined on that mark by Kirkhill's Craig Ross, who won on the PGA EuroPro Tour last season, and Bearsden's former British Boys' champion Ewen Ferguson.

With the Great Britain & Ireland Walker Cup selectors beetling about the Carnoustie links, Ferguson is eager to push his case for a call up and, as team captain Nigel Edwards peered on, he did a decent job of impressing with a one-under 71. "I'd love to play in a Walker Cup and seeing Nigel out there makes me smile," said Ferguson. "He followed me for 13 holes. I had one birdie and 12 pars during that time so hopefully I'll continue to impress him."

By the end of the qualifying scramble, a total of eight Scots had finished inside the 143 cut mark with that number being bolstered by Greig Marchbank,, Jack McDonald, Zander Culverwell and Robert MacIntyre.

The wide ranging casualty list - not caused by gun fire - included St Andrews Links Trophy winner Federico Zucchetti, Ryan Ruffels, the highly-rated Australian, and his compatriot, Antonio Murdaca, who played in April's Masters.